Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany (1933-1945) was a fascist dictatorship that ruled Germany under the rule of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. At its height in 1942 during World War II, it controlled most of Europe from the English Channel and the northern half of France to the gates of Moscow in Russia, while occupying many countries from Norway in the north to Italian Libya in the south. It was one of the largest land empires in history through its occupation of Europe, with Axis Powers allies increasing its power to include Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and all of the Balkans. Its downfall came in 1945 after Hitler killed himself as the Soviet Union took the capital of Berlin, and Germany was occupied, divided into capitalist and communist halves, and denazified.

History
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party were elected to power in 1933 following ten years of agitation against the Weimar Republic government, adhering to German nationalism and seeking to restore Germany to its former glory. These methods included making an economic recovery, retaking ethnically-German lands such as the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, West Prussia in Poland, and the French Army-occupied Rhineland and the Saar. Germany was embarrassed and limited by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I in 1919, and the country was forced to have an army under the size of 100,000 troops and no navy or air force. Hitler decided to renege on the agreement by forming the Wehrmacht, replacing the Reichswehr, and he rearmed the German military at an alarming rate. He also formed the Luftwaffe in 1935, giving Germany an air force, and the Kriegsmarine navy was also increased in size.

Hitler's Nazi Party was very popular, and it purged political enemies in the 1934 Night of the Long Knives to make Germany a unified powerhouse capable of taking on other European nations. Its forces liberated the Rhineland, with the people cheering, and it also reclaimed the Sudetenland from the Czechs. The Munich Agreement of 1936, masterminded by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of the United Kingdom, agreed that war would be averted if Germany halted further expansion. Despite agreeing to the treaty, Hitler sent the Condor Legion to help Nationalist Spain in the Spanish Civil War and proceeded to annex both Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938, forming a country that was growing into the former German Empire. In 1939, Germany decided to reclaim West Prussia from Poland, leading to the Invasion of Poland; the British Commonwealth and France, allies of Poland, intervened against Germany and started World War II.

Under Hitler, Nazi Germany took over much of Europe, with its military using its Blitzkrieg strategy to take over other countries with ease and in a short amount of time. Hitler acquired several groups of people in his country such as Poles, Russians, Jews, Romani, handicapped people, gays, and mentally-ill people, and in 1942 the Wanssee Conference was held to decide their fates. Initially planning to exile the Jews to Madagascar, Hitler instead decided to exterminate all undesirables in the country, leading to the Holocaust. The Einsatzgruppen invading the Soviet Union executed all Jews that it located, while the Germans went to Jewish households and forced the families into concentration camps for labor or to extermination camps for death. Able-bodied Jewish men and women were sent to concentration camps for work, while the elderly, the very young, and the weak were sent to be exterminated. The country also killed Slavs and the impaired, leaving 11,000,000 people dead.

Germany entered the war in an alliance called the "Axis Powers", with Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini and Japan under Hideki Tojo being the most-important members while other countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Manchukuo, and Spain being members of the alliance. The Soviets were a part of the alliance from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 until the German betrayal of the Soviets in Operation Barbarossa in 1941, and the betrayal led to a war on two fronts for Germany. This would lead to its downfall in 1945, with the United Kingdom, France, United States, and their Allied powers coming from the West while the Soviets, Romanians, Bulgarians, and their Comintern allies pushed from the east. In April 1945, Germany was divided in two along the Elbe River, and Hitler killed himself as the Soviets were winning the Battle of Berlin. On 8 May 1945, Germany surrendered to the Allies, and Germany was divided into capitalist West Germany and communist East Germany, with Europe again being divided with the Iron Curtain. However, on both sides the country's former racist ideas were wiped out in Denazification, and most Nazism was eradicated.